The below is the orginal full proposal sent to OCEAN of a full research project into designers contributions to OSS which were inclusive of more interviews, workshops and interviews with OSS projects and developers about design.
We recieved a smaller portion of what we asked for so focused soley on the diary studies. Ensuring all the participants were paid well for their time and insight.
https://vermontcomplexsystems.org/partner/OCEAN/awards/
Proposed project timeline: please include the start date, end date, and project milestones (Max. 500 words)
Over 6 months starting in December 2021 we will:
December 2021: Recruit interviewees and plan the interviews. December 2021: Plan diary studies and recruit diary study participants. January to March 2022: Conduct semi-structured interviews with Open Source Software maintainers and developers. January to March 2022: Conduct semi-structured interviews with designers. March to April 2022: Code interviews and wrap up diary studies with participants May 2022: Complete a written report.
Please provide a brief 1-2 sentence summary of your proposal. What is the project and what are the goals? (Max. 300 words)
Building upon existing research I will investigate some key questions related to design in OSS. Design in Open Source Software is sometimes done by developers, sometimes done by those with design skills but it’s difficult to understand where the role of design within Open Source Software (OSS) is when most design in OSS has been done by developers as they code the software. The boundaries of ‘who designs’ therefore is difficult to parse when trained designers enter the OSS space wanting to participate and what are optimal conditions for success. There has been some key research done into “usability” and “users” (how design is often understood within OSS) for OSS projects (Raza & Capretz 2012, Hedberg & Iivari 2009, Bodker, Orngreen & Nielsen 2007), as well as research into gatekeeping methods (Rajanen, Iivari and Lanamaki 2015) that designers have experienced from OSS projects when they have contributed design. There are, however, very few accounts of designers' experiences in OSS ‘in their own words’ that are documented and compared. Here, we aim to understand OSS’s relationship to design and the contributions these projects receive while simultaneously gathering insight and experience from designers. I would like to give designers an opportunity to describe their experiences when contributing to OSS in a safe, protected interview environment. With this, I would also like to trial a compensated auto-ethnographic, ‘diary study’ practice for a sample of designers contributing to OSS, including myself.
Please specify the amount (in USD) you are requesting and provide a brief budget justification (Max 500 words.)
I am requesting $28,675.00 USD to complete the suggested 6 months of project work and deliverables. As seen in the budget breakdown this covers the costs of participants' time involved in interviews and research activities, as well as the investigators’ time to conduct interviews, synthesize findings, and write up reports and articles from the findings. Designers are rarely compensated for contribution work on OSS, and I believe it is critical that we incentivize designers and signal that insights into design in OSS are worth funding.
What are the key deliverables? What are the core milestones towards accomplishing the deliverables for this project? (Max. 300 words)
Interview transcripts and recordings. Analysis/‘Coding’ of interviews. 2-3 Collaborative, co-created mapping exercise ‘artifacts’ centered around what is a ‘successful’ design contribution from OSS maintainer perspectives and what is a ‘successful’ design contribution from a designer-contributor perspective. Auto-ethnographic ‘diary’ studies from a small sample of designers contributing to OSS. Synthesis from workshops/interviews in the form of a report or paper. 1-3 Online publication ready articles dependent on segmentation of the research. 1 recorded discussion with project leads and interested parties within the OSS world (OCEAN, OSPO’s, OSI, Open Source Design, Internship programs etc.)
Upload proposed estimated budget sheet: How do you plan to spend the requested funds? (no word limit but please provide as a table the following columns)
| Amount in USD | Detailed Description - 1-2 sentences | Category - one-word description |
|---|---|---|
| $1000.00 (20 x $50 per 1 hr interview) | Fee for interviewee time | Stipend |
| $3500.00 ($700 x 5) | Fee for diary-study participant time | Stipend |
| $6000.00 | Honorarium for workshop facilitators | Honorarium |
| $1000.00 | Fee for workshop participant time | Stipend |
| $7000.00 | Honorarium for analyzing and synthesizing data | Honorarium |
| $3000.00 | Note taker and assistant researcher fees | Honorarium |
| $1000.00 | Organising and conducting recorded session | Honorarium |
| $1000.00 ($100.00 per person capped at 10 guests) | Fee for recorded conversation attendance | Stipend |
| $175.00 per 45-60 minute recording | Audio clean up and sound bites via a professional editing company. | Recording and editing fees |
| $2000.00 | Paper writing and articles | Honorarium |
| $1400.00 ($50 per hour) | Editor fees | Professional Services |
| $1600.00 ($60 per 10 pages) | Proofreading fees | Professional Services |
Brief Bios for each investigator on this project (max. 300 words for each investigator)
Investigator 1: Eriol is a multi-skilled, ‘full-stack’ designer with 10+ years of experience in design, technology and human-rights. They have focused on human centered, community-led user experience (UX) design and research projects. Over the last four years they have been working in OSS organizations and have leadership roles in the design for OSS community alongside contributing to numerous OSS projects.
Investigator 2: Pending
Please use this space to detail your project and how it relates to OCEAN and what impacts you think this project will have broadly: (1,000 words max (not including references)).
‘Design’ is an often opaque and mysterious part of an open source software project or community. Design is sometimes done by developers, sometimes done by those with design skills but it’s difficult to understand where these roles and boundaries lie and with whom and in what optimal conditions for success. I would like to here specifically raise that ‘design’ here is specifically ‘human centred design’ as the broader term ‘design’ can mean many different functions and processes. Human centred design can be defined via the Design Council UK as:
“All design should be human centred... not ‘user-centred’ or ‘user-friendly’, because users are human beings after all. But, more importantly, because being human-centred is not just about your user. Human-centred design takes into account every single human being that your design decisions impact on...You need to be open to the fact that there might be many other potential users out there that you aren’t aware of yet.”
Through my involvement in the open source design community, I have heard many stories from designers about the barriers to participating, lack of entries to contribute and clear ways to sustain contributions as a design that are clear to see when investigating OSS.
There has been key research done around ‘usability’ and ‘users’ (beyond the ‘scratch their own itch’ developer user) being listened to in a design capacity for OSS projects (Raza & Capretz 2012, Hedberg & Iivari 2009, Bodker, Orngreen & Nielsen 2007) along with research into gatekeeping methods (Rajanen, Iivari and Lanamaki 2015) that designers have experienced from OSS projects when they contributed designs. There are, however, very few accounts of designers' experiences in OSS in their own words that are documented and compared. I would like to give designers an opportunity to describe their experiences when contributing to OSS in a safe, interview environment. I will also trial an auto-ethnographic, ‘diary study’ for a sample of designers contributing to OSS, including myself.
I will build upon this research by investigating some key questions related to design in OSS.
- What are the experiences that designers contributing to OSS commonly have? How do these compare with others?
- What are the conditions that can set designers up for success within OSS projects, specifically regarding ‘contributions of design’?
- What conditions create a sense of inclusion, both at the project and community scales, for designers in OSS?
With some questions from the perspectives of an ‘OSS project’ focused around how they view human-centred design and how it relates to their understanding of the success of the OSS project.
- What is a design contribution and how is human centred design understood within OSS communities?
- How do OSS project developers/maintainers/communities describe ‘successful’ design contributions?
- How do OSS project developers/maintainers/communities describe a ‘successful’ relationship with designers around their OSS project and the OSS community more widely?
This project proposal is only limited in its results by time and resources. The is good reason to build this project openly so that further funding and OSS research could be further contributed using the outlines and frameworks suggested in this initial research. This expansion of the project could look like:
- Including more OSS community members in interviews and better understanding the potential difference per purpose of the OSS (e.g. OSS with an academic research focus vs OSS that is a developer tool etc.)
- Including more types of designers in interviews
- Shadowing and monitoring design contribution through to implementation
- Inclusion of non-English language speakers
OCEAN states that its mission is to ‘study how open source communities come together to solve complex problems’. The nature of human/user centred design is to “solve problems using research and design methods that center the variety of users of the tool they seek to problem solve for.” We can see that open source communities are solving human/user centred design problems for developers when we look at statements such as “Hackers can be very good at designing interfaces for other hackers, they tend to be poor at modeling the thought processes of the other 95% of the population well enough to write interfaces that ‘J. Random end-user and his aunt Tillie’ will pay to buy” (Raymond 1999). However, with subsequent research stating insights such as “Developers need specific external help to cater for the average user” (Norman and Draper 1986). We can see the gaps where designers can bring their expertise with tools and techniques created for the purpose of understanding the users of a system and building solutions that cater to these discovered problems. I am proposing we focus on the understanding of human/user centred design and the designers that conduct it within the OSS maintainers and community members we interview with a focus around what they believe success for them means and how it is expressed. Likewise, if we interview the designers conducting this kind of human/user centred design within open source spaces we can compare and observe similarities and disparities between these two groups that, if understood better, could help support consistent and successful evolution of best practice (Software Development and human/user centred design) within OSS to solve complex problems around the needs of the humans/users of the OSS.
The conversations around the functions outside of the software developer focussed aspect of OSS have been discussed with ever increasing frequency from credible sources such as the president of the OSI speaking publicly about the importance of all functions (including design) to ensure that OSS is sustainable long-term to the many OSS focussed conferences that have community building, documentation and design tracks. Here we see OSS projects discuss design more and more - “How do we make our OSS better for everyone that uses it, not just those similar to us (software developers)?”. This research will authentically interrogate what the understanding of design is for OSS software developers and subsequently, its success and value within those projects. Along with the companion research into the designer's experience. I want this research to begin to open-up understandings and experiences to the wider OSS ecosystem and to build examples that can model good, successful behaviour. I see this research giving a voice to a little understood sub-community within OSS, that of the designers who contribute.